Get Your Head Into The Game
by hotdogfish
Summary: "She was in a video game, in what probably passed as a town. Four buildings in a forest clearing, she scoffed, was not a town, it was a hillbilly camp...Hopefully, this would turn out to be a first person shooter game and someone was about to give her some kind of semi-automated weapon, but she doubted it." Based on HG/SS. Rating for occasional swearing. Oneshot


She woke up and immediately started panicking.

She was in the middle of a large bedroom with a bed in one corner, and a desk and computer, a TV, and some kind of gaming console against the far wall. There were no door, only a set of stars leading to the floor below, though there was a large window on each wall.

The problem, was that this bedroom was not her bedroom.

Her bedroom had a three year old apple tree in a large pot, which she'd carefully grown from a granny smith apple seed, and a small cactus on her bedside table that, despite not being so carefully grown, was still alive anyway. She didn't have a computer, or a TV, or any kind of gaming console in her small bedroom, though she did have a desk with an old laptop on it, suitable only for homework, emails, and swearing at. She only had one window, positioned so that the street light outside shone straight on her bed if there was the slightest gap in the curtains, and it still smelled faintly of paint.

This bedroom was not her new bedroom, or even her old one. Their house didn't have any rooms with windows on every single wall. Their house didn't even windows on every wall, as they were in a duplex and shared one wall with their neighbours.

Trying not to hyperventilate, she noticed that not only had she been kidnapped, but someone had changed her clothes, too. Gone were the Mickey Mouse pyjama shorts and AC/DC t-shirt she wore to bed, replaced with a red, long-sleeved shirt, short dungarees that barely covered her ass, long white socks that ended half way up her thighs _,_ and a big white hat. Oh, and her her hair was now in pig-tails instead of her normal braid, and brown instead of black.

So, she'd been kidnapped, had her hair dyed and probably cut a bit, dressed in a dorky outfit, complete with shoes and a hat, then put in a strange room in a strange house.

She crept to the closest window and had a look out.

Across from her were two more buildings, presumably more houses, and unnaturally thick forest behind them. To her left, she could just make out a wind turbine, a river, and more forest, and to her right was even more forest, though with a small path leading into it, and the corner of another building. The window on that wall showed her the building in more detail; it was two stories, like the one she was in, with stairs leading up to the second floor. She turned further to see out the window behind her, and saw nothing but trees so didn't bother even walking across the room to get a better look.

There was no sign of the Toronto skyline. She couldn't even see the CN Tower, which was, if nothing else, the most recognizable building out there. Or, it should have been. She'd grown up camping in the Ontario wilderness, she'd even been hunting a few times. She'd never successfully gone hunting, but that was besides the point. The point was that she knew what Ontario forests should look like, and it wasn't like this.

Slowly, and with exaggerated care, she sank to the floor and huddled by the wall as everything started to spin and black dots danced across her vision. A small part of her brain told her that she was loosing the battle against hyperventilation.

Who knew how far away from home she was? Did her parents know? What would happen when she didn't turn up for work that afternoon? Or at school on Monday? Who would feed Fuzzball, her pet tarantula? Who would convince Aaron, her twin brother, not to go to Graduation in jeans and a t-shirt?

In the end, it was the small problems, not the big ones, that calmed her down enough that she was able to function.

The first step, she decided, in regaining control over herself and eventually getting home, was to get rid of the floofy hat on her head. She wasn't one to wear hats, except for a flat cap she wore while hiking.  
Her high school's textiles class had taught her how to add pockets and straps and things, which she'd used for emergency fishing line, hooks, a thermal blanket, and so on. But this big white _thing_ was ridiculous and lacked all her modifications and supplies.

She grabbed hold of it and tugged, and was very surprised when it didn't come off. It wasn't particularly tight around her head, and it didn't pull on her hair, she could even push her fingers under the brim, but it just wouldn't come off her head. Experimentally,y she tried folding down one of her stupidly high socks, and found that it wanted to move even less than her hat!

With her emotional compass rapidly swinging from 'afraid' to 'annoyed', she decided to skip step one and go straight to step two: getting a weapon to defend herself.

There wasn't much in the room, and none of it looked particularly dangerous as it was, but she eventually decided that the stool in front of the computer could probably be broken up into lengths of wood, then the computer screen smashed, and strips of bedding used to tie sharp bits of glass to the broken stool to give herself a makeshift knife. She figured that it wouldn't quite work out like that, but it was somewhere to start.

She hooked one foot under the stool to pull it out, and almost toppled over when it refused to move, pinwheeling her arms to try and keep her balance. She knelt down to give it a firm tug and, when that failed to budge it, lay on her back to have a look under it. With her face less than a foot away from the stool, she realized what was wrong with it, and what had made the trees look so unnatural. It also explained why she couldn't take off her hat or roll down her socks.

The stool was pixilated.

She jumped up and ran to the closest window, the back one that showed nothing but trees, to confirm it. The trees were arranged in dense rows and, her eyes flicking from a particular spot of shading near the top of one tree, to the same spot on the next tree, and the next, they were all the exact same.

She was in a video game, in what probably passed as a town. Four buildings in a forest clearing, she scoffed, was not a town, it was a hillbilly camp. For a moment, she listened for 8-bit banjo music, but hearing nothing, decided instead that she'd acquired all she could from the bedroom and that it was time to risk going downstairs. Hopefully, this would turn out to be a first person shooter game and someone was about to give her some kind of semi-automated weapon, but she doubted it. No self respecting shooter game character would be caught dead wearing an outfit such as hers.

The flight of stairs was not a long one, and she found herself in an open plan kitchen, dining room, and living room. There was only one door and no other exits. A woman was sitting at the table in the middle of the room, and looked up and walked over to her when she entered the room.

"Hi Lyra! You're finally awake." The woman somehow exclaimed in a monotone.

"Yeah, my name's not-"

"Your friend Ethan was just here." She continued, seemingly unaware that she was interrupting.

"Who the heck is Ethan?"

"He was playing hide-and-seek with his MARILL." For some reason, she yelled the last word, before continuing in her normal monotone. "Oh, I almost forgot! Our acquaintance, Professor Elm, was looking for you. He said he had a favour to ask of you. You know where the lab is, right? It's right next door to us. By the way, do you have everything you need to go out? Here, use this Bag to carry things..."

A fashionable messenger bag suddenly appeared on her shoulder, and an exploratory prod revealed that it was empty. It was also completely inappropriate for any kind of extended wilderness exploration, as she was beginning to suspect she would have to do. A backpack would have been better, with waist and chest straps. At the very least, even one of those backpacks with just the one strap, specially fitted to go across the chest, would have been better.

"This is your trainer card..."

She waited for a card to appear in her hand, or possibly floating in the air, because one never knew in video games, but nothing happened.

"Here you can save a record of your progress...There are also rather helpful...Just try touching the buttons, and you'll know what to do in no time." The woman finished, with no explanation as to where these "buttons" were, then turned around and went back to her seat.

"So is that it?" She asked from her spot on the stairs, only to be ignored

"Hello?! Psh, screw you too."

She flung her arms into the air in frustration and stomped out the door.

Go to the house next door. She'd paid enough attention to remember that, but first she had a theory to test.

She went around to the back of the house to the trees and examined the trunks. They were as identical as their crowns, but what was important was that there was a gap between each one, wide enough that she could just manage to squeeze through. She was no longer surprised, however, when an invisible barrier stopped her from passing the first row of trees. Clearly this game wasn't an open world one.

She went back to the 'town' center to decide whether to visit next door or not, only for her to be stopped by a perfectly round, bright blue animal of some kind. It had round mouse-ears, but was running on just its hind legs, and had a smaller, equally blue and round ball on the end of its multiply-kinked, black tail. She almost didn't notice the kid following it. The blue thing did, though, and quickly waddled over to him and they both left without a word. Weird.

She stared at the path in the trees, but decided to go to the other large house first. She hadn't picked up a single quest yet, and was probably in some kind of tutorial area.

If size and uniqueness was related to plot significance, then the house next to the one she'd started in certainly fit the bill. It was the biggest building of the four, had two chimneys, and awnings above the windows, it also had its own larger wind turbine. It even had a red haired kid looking in a side window!. The other two buildings were both small and undecorated, though they also had their own turbines. Did they not realize that a single wind turbine was capable of powering much more than their tiny settlement? Apparently not.

She went into the large house, and realized that it was actually a laboratory, not a residence. She would have liked to look around a bit, but almost fell over again when some force took over her feet and forced her to walk straight forward, to some old guy in a lab coat.

"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO MY FEET?!" She shrieked as she was forced forward, to no reply.

She tried to force her feet to stop moving, and was panting with exertion when she finally stopped.

"Hi, Lyra! I've been waiting for you!" He exclaimed in a monotone, just like the woman in the first house. "Do you know anything about my research?..."

She tuned him out. She doubted much of what he told her would be useful to getting home, and honestly, monotones were hard to pay attention to for any length of time.

This lab, she saw, was nothing like the neat and orderly labs of her high school. Stacks of books were piled haphazardly on the floor and tables, and none of the cupboards and shelves held equipment, just more spilling piles of books and papers. An old computer was on the desk behind the old man, with a strange looking machine next to it. It was too pixelated to tell, but if the rest of the room was anything to go by, she expected that both were covered in either dust, smearing fingerprints, or both.

A sudden relaxing in her legs let her know that she could move again, and the old guy had stopped talking. She had no idea what she was supposed to do, but she wasn't about to ask. For one, she'd been ignored last time she tried talking to someone, and second, she did not want him to repeat the whole thing all over again. She walked over to the strange machine, glad that she was able to, but didn't touch it, for she had no idea what would happen if she did. She continued behind the old man, who was standing stock still and staring straight ahead, and to a table with three red balls on it.

She poked one, and an image of a baby dinosaur appeared above it. It was bright green, had four legs and a stubby tail, and had a large leaf growing out of it's head. It didn't look every big, but it had the body shape of one of the dinos that grew a hundred feet long and crushed things it didn't like underfoot. She poked the next one, and the green dinosaur was replaced with a blue, bipedal, baby crocodile, and everyone knew what baby crocs did when they weren't babies anymore. She poked the last one, and was shown a tubby anteater with its back on fire.

"Do I have to choose one of these?" She asked, but got no response.

Maybe she had to be right next to the person to be able to talk to them. It made as much sense as everything else had so far.

"I'll take the anteater thingy." She announced, hoping to progress the 'story line'. "Maybe it'll be less likely to go crazy later on in life because it's been capable of mass murder since the day it was born instead of having to wait to grow up."

"So you want CINDAQUIL, the fire Pokemon?" The old guy asked, making her jump.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Great."

Her feet forced her to walk back to the old guy, except this time, her new anteater was following her. She was forced to stop back in front of the old guy, and her anteater stopped next to her, staring at the side of her knees.

"How do you like walking with your Pokemon? It's not bad, is it?" The old guy monologued, and she tried her hardest to pay attention this time. "You can take it all the way to Mr Pokemon's house. If your Pokemon gets hurt...You should heal it with this machine. It's so easy to use. Just check the PC on my desk!

"Mr. Pokemon goes everywhere and finds rarities. His house is past Cherrygrove City. Go north a little past Cherrygrove. I'm counting on you, Lyra!"

Once he finished, he froze up again, and stood as still as a statue. She turned around, and her anteater was just as frozen. Whatever.

Her instructions were clear, go see this guy who lived past a grove of cherry trees. Those trees had better have cherries on them, otherwise she had no idea how to tell cherry trees apart from any other kind of tree.

When her feet froze again as she was heading back towards the door, she finally did fall over, landing flat on her face and would have given herself a bloody nose if she was in a reality that allowed it.

"Lyra, I want you to have these to help you with your task." Some guy to her side said. "Pokemon are weak in the beginning. Don't hesitate to use a potion if you think yours is in danger."

She shakily stood back up, and her messenger bag thumped her side with a glassy clinking noise. Warily, she looked inside and saw some spray bottles filled with purple liquid rolling around the bottom of one of the pockets.

She left town and started out west. She quickly reached a large patch of knee length, green blobs. She took a step in it and it shook for a moment, then stilled; she decided that the blobs were probably significant. After another few steps, a large, purple rat appeared. Literally, it appeared out of nowhere. Granted the blobs were rather tall, but they weren't _that_ tall, and they weren't all that dense either. Plus thing thing was bright purple, there was no way she could have possibly missed it.

It was fortunate that it was just sitting there, most likely waiting for her to take a turn, because she actually had no idea what to do.

"Right, random encounter." She mused out loud. "I wasn't allowed to leave that hillbilly place until I got my flaming anteater, so I guess this is some kind of animal fighting game ... that's kinda barbaric, actually."

She examined the purple rat, which was still standing in place, and hardly moving. If she didn't see it breathe occasionally, she would have thought that it was dead.

"I guess you're up." She told her anteater.

When it didn't move, she gave it a nudge with her foot.

"C'mon...GO!" She eventually shouted.

That finally got it to move, though all it did was step around her and leap forward, to then stand motionless in front of the rat.

She groaned, it looked like she would have to give it orders, and it looked like they might be word specific.

"Attack!" She tried.

Nothing happened. It was probably too vague.

"Breath fire! ... Flame! Flame thrower, burn, char ... no?"

Hm, most games involved levelling up, maybe fire attacks were too advanced.

"Hit, bite- no, you don't really have any teeth, do you? Um, scratch, kick..." she tried to think of different sports for inspiration, "punch, karate chop, slap, tackle- FINALLY!"

Her anteater charged forward and slammed into the rat in a full body tackle, and then stood still again.

"Tackle it again." She ordered, she wanted this over with, not drawn out longer.

Her anteater didn't move, though for some reason, the rat turned around, waved its tail at them, then turned back around.

"Okay...now will you tackle it?"

It did, after which the rat vanished, as mysteriously as it had appeared.

Random battles. Turn based. Word specific commands. Slowly, she was learning to play.

It took all of ten minutes to reach the cherry tree grove, which turned out to be another hillbilly town not a grove of trees at all. The road had been a bit of a maze, and she'd had to battle a few more purple rats, some large sparrow things, and a squirrel that stood on its tail, but all in all, it hadn't been difficult.

The moment she got into the town, she lost control of her feet again and was forced to follow a rambling old man around town. If he hadn't told her where she could go to heal her anteater, then it would have been a complete waste of time, even with her shoes changing colour when he left her.

She entered the building with a bright red roof, and headed straight to the lady at the desk across the small lobby.

"Hello, and welcome to the Pokemon Center. We restore your tired Pokemon to full health. Would you like to rest your Pokemon?" The lady monologued with a vapid smile on her face.

"Do I have to listen to that whole thing every time I come in here?" She asked, horrified, to no response. "Er...yes, I guess."

Her anteater waddled around her and bounced up onto the counter and vanished back into the red and white ball she'd gotten it out off. Then the ball disappeared too.

"OK, I'll take your Pokemon for a few seconds."

The lady turned to the machine next to her for a second.

"Thank you for waiting. We've restored your Pokemon to full health. Please come back at any time!"

She even gave a little bow at the end, for some reason.

With a roll of her eyes at the robotic cheerfulness, she left the vet hoping that they would also fix her up if she got injured. Of course, if her theory of _animal_ fighting held up, then it might be impossible for her to get injured at all. That would be nice. Then she remembered how she fell over earlier, and though it hurt, there hadn't been any blood, or broken cartilage, or anything. It had even stopped hurting the moment she stoop up too. Perhaps there was an upside to this place.

She was horrifying even herself.

She tried to leave town, but was stopped as the supposed tour guide from earlier showed up.

"...Hf ... Hf. He said, instead of huffing for breath. "I made it ... I forgot about one thing. This is another token from me! Take it."

Nothing happened, but the man walked away anyway.

She left town on the second try and walked around a ridge to get to the guy's house. This road was a lot more straight forward than the first one, and the only surprise was a large ladybug that decided to attack her. Heck, she could even see the guy's house from the town!

Inside the house was a fat guy was sitting at a table. A fat guy she'd seen before, or at least, she'd seen another man that looked like him. The professor guy had looked different from everyone else, and that kid with the blue, round thing had too. Supposedly, the man she was going to see was plot significant, and so would also look less generic.

"Hi, I might have been sent here by some guy from a messy lab?" She said, sounding less and less sure of herself as she went on.

"People usually come to my house looking for Mr. Pokemon's house. You did mean to visit my house, right?" He said

"No, sorry." She replied.

'Yes' had worked in the past, so maybe 'no' would get her out of this.

"How kind of you!"

Damn it.

"Do you ... have any Apricorns? Apricorn trees bear fruit once a day..."

She tuned him out, only jerking back to attention when she felt a weight appear in her bag. Why couldn't anyone hand her things normally, like a real person, instead of just making stuff appear?

She left before he had the chance to say anything else and continued on her way. Fortunately, it wasn't far to the actual guy's house and, once inside, she lost control of her feet yet again, a sure sign that she was somewhere plot relevant.

Two men, both unique looking, so she was sure she was in the right place, were sitting at a table in the middle of the room. The one on the left got up and went over to her, while the one on the right remained sitting, staring into space.

"You must by Lyra. It was I who sent an email to Professor Elm earlier." He said before going to one of the cupboards.

Why on Earth did everyone know her as 'Lyra'? It was bad enough in the first hillbilly town, but she would have preferred if it hadn't started spreading.

"This is what I want Professor Elm to examine." He said when he returned, and a corresponding weight appeared into her bag, with a light clinging from the potions tapping each other.

She had to pay attention, she had to. This was main quest stuff.

"A friend of mine from Ecruteak gave it to me. I bet you can't find this kind of Egg in Johto. I thought Professor Elm might be able to tell what this is. "He's the best when it comes to the research of Pokemon Evolution" That's a quote from the famous Professor Oak. You are returning to Professor Elm? Here. Your Pokemon should have some rest."

Wow, main quest stuff was boring.

The other guy walked over, and she hoped that he would have something more interesting to say.

"And with that ... I'm Professor Oak, a Pokemon researcher! So you're Lyra! I was just visiting my friend Mr. Pokemon. I heard you were running an errand for Professor Elm, so I waited here."

He paused in his excited droning to check out her anteater.

"Oh! What's this? A rare Pokemon! I see! You must be helping Professor Elm's research! I understand why Professor Elm gave you that Pokemon. You will treat your Pokemon with love and care, it seems. Ah! You seem dependable. How would you like to help me out? See? This is the latest version of the Pokedex. It automatically records data on Pokemon you've seen or caught. It's a high-tech encyclopedia! I'd like you to have it."

Another clunk in her bag. She was pretty sure that she was making progress.

"Go meet many kinds of Pokemon and complete that Pokedex! But I've stayed too long. I have to get to Goldenrod for my usual radio show. Lyra, I have a feeling that this is not the last time we'll meet ... Let's exchange numbers just to be on the safe side."

He promptly left, leaving her alone with the other guy. When he didn't immediately say anything, she high-tailed it out the door so that he didn't have time to start. When she froze again just outside the front door, she screamed in frustration until she started to feel lightheaded. It wasn't until she quietened that she heard her phone ringing.

"What the hell do you want?!" She yelled into the phone. She didn't even know who it was.

"H-hello?" A male voice monotoned. "Lyra? It's a disaster! Uh, um, it's just terrible!" What should I do? It ... Oh, no ... Please get back here now!" She still didn't know who it was.

Despite her annoyance, she still found it within herself to think the caller an idiot. That was not how you communicated in an emergency. She hoped that him and his pixel house burned down in a pixel fire, and his pixil quests with him.

She headed back to the cherry grove town and, after taking her anteater to the vet again, she was then stopped by a red-headed kid about the same size as her.

"...You got a Pokemon at the Lab. What a waste. That's a Pokemon that's too good for a wimp like you...Don't you get what I'm saying? Well, I too have a good Pokemon. I'll show you what I mean!" He monotoned.

"That's great and all, but I'd just like to get past to finish my quest and go home." She sighed, not really listening to what he'd said.

The kid threw a small ball at the ground, and the blue crocodile she'd been offered appeared.

"Go, tackle." She said without even waiting for her anteater to get forward.

After a mere twenty minutes in this place, any novelty had worn off, and she'd gotten a decent command of the controls. Some of them, at least.

With a few hits, the crocodile thing was gone and the red-head started another rambling monologue. She took the opportunity to flip him off. He didn't react, or even seem to notice, but she still felt better about it.

As he pushed by, she felt her hand jerk out and snatch a plastic card from his pocket. Her head bent down and her eyes focused themselves on what should have been his name at the top, which, strangely, was three question marks. He stomped back as she was forced to stare at the question marks, feeling kinda violated, and yanked his card back out of her hand.

"Give it back! That's my Trainer Card! Oh no! You saw my name."

'His name was three question marks? Someone's parents were a bit indecisive on the birth certificate,' she mused.

He stormed off a second time, with his card this time, and she was free to head back to the first hillbilly town. It took even less time for her to get back than it did for her to leave. She headed straight for the lab, and figured out the trick of this feet thing. She didn't stop walking when she went through the door, then when she was jerked forward, there was no jerk. It was the smoothest out-of-body-controlling event yet. She was even somewhat ready for the sudden stop when she reached the cop.

"Who are you?" He probably tried to demand, but when coupled with the monotone that everyone seemed to have, he just sounded apathetic. "We are investigating the case of the missing Pokemon here...Rule number one! "Whoever did it will come back to the site." Oh my...So you must be...the one who did it?"

What a moron. Is this what passed for a police force here? No wonder that kid went around stealing stuff, it would be like taking candy from a baby.

"Hold on a second!" That kid had reappeared, the one with the blue ball thing. "She had nothing to do with it! I saw it. There was a red-headed boy looking into the building!"

"What? You battled a boy like that?" The cop asked her, somehow jumping to a correct conclusion without any input from anyone. She hadn't even said that she'd battled anyone. "He must be the one who did it...Did you happen to get his name?"

"Name? He just had three question marks, the weirdo." She replied.

"I see! ? was his name?"

"You lot must be on crack, or heroin, or something, I swear."

"Thanks for helping my investigation. My next assignment is to search for this red-haired individual." The cop left without another word.

"Lyra! I'm glad they understand you are innocent. See you later!" The kid said, then followed the cop out.

"Lyra, this is terrible." Said the remaining man, the Professor Tree guy, "Oh, yes, what was Mr. Pokemon's big discovery?

For once, her bag felt a little lighter, rather than heavier, but she couldn't bring herself to care much.

"Huh? This is an ... Egg, isn't it? This Egg may be something I've never seen ... still it's just an Egg. Mr. Pokemon is always fascinated by Eggs. Well, since he gave it to us, we might as well find out what secret it holds. I'll keep it for a while to find out about the Egg.

"What?! Professor Oak gave you a Pokedex?" He almost sounded excited, but not quite. "Lyra, is that true? Th-that's incredible! He is superb at seeing the potential of people as Trainers. Wow, Lyra. I knew you were a little different. Things are going to be fun! Your Pokemon seem to really like you, so why don't you ... take the Pokemon Gym challenge?"

 _This_ seemed more like a main quest line than anything else she's heard so far. Side quests could be ignored, but it was the main quests that would get her home, she was sure of it.

"If you manage to defeat all the Gym Leaders, you'll eventually challenge the Pokemon League Champion! ... Or not! Ha Ha! Becoming the Champion is not all easy, but you can certainly challenge Violet City's Gym."

She stared as he turned to the computer behind him for a moment. She was sure he'd said "Violent City Gym" and was hoping that she was wrong.

"... Lyra. Challenging the Gyms scattered around will be a long journey. Before you leave, make sure that you talk to your mom."

She had a mom here? That was news to her. Maybe he meant the lady in the house she'd woken up in?

After waiting a second to see if he was going to say anything else, she headed back outside, ready to catch herself if the other scientist wanted to say something, too.

She stepped outside, expecting the brisk breeze to blow in her face like a breath of, quite literal, fresh air. It didn't. She'd been too distracted to notice earlier, but the wind blew the turbines around and whipped up the dust, but she couldn't feel a thing. Suddenly grumpy at the sensory deprivation, she stomped over to her so-called mom's house.

"Now what do you want?!" She demanded as soon as she got in the door, to no reply.

Cursing about activation zones, she marched over and stood next to her pseudo mom and, when that produced no response, poked her arm.

"... So you're leaving on an adventure ..." She finally said, "OK! I'll help, too. But what can I do for you? I know! Every time you receive prize money, I'll save some of it for you. Do you want me to save your money for you?"

Her 'mom' looked at her with her soulless, pixelated eyes and she shuddered.

"Sure, whatever makes you happy." She replied.

Anything to get her to stop looking at her like that.

"Ok, I'll take care of your money. Be careful. Pokemon are your friends. When you work as a team, you can accomplish anything! Now, go on!"

'Mom' turned back to the table, taking her empty gaze with her, so she took the opportunity to run out the door and back into the non-existent breeze.

Well, that was probably her introduction over with. Hopefully she was now free to do what she wanted, as long as what she wanted to do was this gym thing. The Professor did say that it would take her a while to do it.

She imagined all her family, her friends, her plans for that year, all gone. She then firmly pictured putting all those things in a mental box, putting the box on a shelf in a room, then shutting and locking the door. She had no idea how long she was going to be stuck in the pixel world, but she was determined not to spend the whole time moping about it. She would probably get out quicker if she didn't, anyway.

In a very stable, and somewhat resigned, frame of mind, she headed back towards the grassy path. Her feet froze again, just as she left the hillbilly town.

"Fuck it all to Hell-ville and back!" She swore

The little, blue, round thing was there again, as well as the kid that followed it around.

"There you are!" The kid yelled, then walked over.

"Lyra! You can catch wild Pokemon with Pokeballs. Follow me!"

She was forced to follow after him and his blue thing into the blobby grass, and watch as he battled another purple rat, and then throw another red and white ball at it.

"See? Just like that! It's better to lower your target's HP more than I did, or make it sleep or something. You can try all kinda of things to see what works. I'll give you these. Good luck!"

She was so busy wondering how on earth she was supposed to know what her opponent's health was, that she didn't even notice the five little clinks as the pokeballs appeared in her bag.

"See ya!"

Both the kid and the blue thing wandered off.

She was thoroughly sick of all the tutorials, but at least she knew how to complete the side quest, even if she didn't really have any intention of doing so.

She was ready. She was going to work for as long and as hard as she had to in order to get home.

Less than two days later, she'd challenged and defeated all eight Gyms, the Elite Four, as well as the Champion, and was now floating in darkness with the words 'The End' floating in front of her. She closed her eyes in relief. Two days had been a lot faster than she'd expected, but it had felt like a lot longer. There had been no one she could talk to except for herself, everyone and everything were pixelated, and very little was unique to itself. Trees, grass, Pokemon, and even people were little more than carbon copies of each other.

Now, she was done.

Finished.

She was going home.

She opened her eyes and found herself somewhere very familiar: her bedroom. Her pixelated one.

She stomped down the stairs, swearing like a particularly annoyed sailor.

"Hi, Lyra! Professor Elm told me that he has something to give you!" Her 'mom' said.

Was that the guy next door? Good, she had something to say to him, too.

Still swearing, she went to see the professor.

"What the hell, old man?!" She yelled before he could get a word in edgewise.

"Lyra!" He said, oblivious as everyone else to her swearing. "There you are! I called because I have something for you. See? It\s an S.S. Ticket. Now you can catch Pokemon in Kanto."

Crap, the side quest. She hadn't been trying very hard with that. Maybe it was less of a side quest than she'd thought.

"The ticket will let you take the Fast Ship that departs from Olivine City. But you knew that already, Lyra. After all, you've adventured all over with your Pokemon. Give my regards to Professor Oak in Kanto!"

She walked calmly outside, she'd given up on stomping except for when she was surprised into it, and get her totem bird to fly her to the harbour city. It took her another day to figure out that there was a whole new set of gyms to defeat, and did them instead of going on a mass catching expedition. She defeated the Elite Four, again, and the Champion, also again, and was soon floating in the darkness with the words 'The End' in front of her. She waited, and waited, then tried to remember what she did last time.

She closed her eyes and, not daring to hope, opened them. She sighed in frustration at the pixels and left for the lab again.

For the first time, the Professor was no help. She paced around for a while, thinking, then went to see the older Professor, the one in Kanto.

"Good to see you!" He said when she poked him. It was a rather effective method of getting people's attention. "This is what I wanted to give you! That Hidden Machine contains the move Rock Climb! When you teach it to a Pokemon, you can go up rock walls that have steps carved in them.

"Those badges are ... Wow! You have not only become the Johto Champion, but you've collected all the Kanto Badges! Well done!"

Wait, did that mean that she hadn't needed to defeat the Elite Four and Champion the second time? Well crap! She'd used up most of her medicines beating the Champion and it would take a while before she could afford to buy them all again.

"Hmm ... No wonder I sensed something in you when we met." He continued. "Tell you what, Lyra. I'll make arrangements so that you an go to Mt. Silver. Mt. Silver is a big mountain that is home to many wild Pokemon. It's too dangerous for your average Trainer, so it's off limits. But we can make an exception in your case, Lyra. Go to the Pokemon League Reception Gate. You can reach Mt. Silver from there."

Mt. Silver was not nearly so complicated as the Professor made it out to be. The closest thing she had to a problem was that she had to go back out to get her rock with arms to move some boulders out of the way. She was surprised that the cave system itself was completely deserted, and hardly saw the point, until she found some guy chillaxing at the very top of the mountain.

He was the first pseudo-person she'd met so far who didn't have a mindless blurb to say before they battled, and she found it refreshing. He then gave her Pokemon the most thorough thrashing they'd had yet, which was not refreshing at all.

"Shit, I hate levelling" She swore.

Obviously this guy was supposed to be some kind of boss after the Champion.

"Wait, did you just swear?" He asked, stunned, and stunning her in turn.

"Did ... Did you just _respond_ to me swearing?" She asked, gobsmacked.

"No one swears here." He mumbled.

"And no one notices if you do, either." She added.

"Three years and no one to swear with..." He seemed to be in shock.

"Hang on a second, you are, you know, real? Right?" She cautiously asked.

"Yeah ... it doesn't always feel like it in here, though."

"In here?" She quoted.

Suddenly, he snapped out of his daze and focused on her with a half-crazed grin.

"Wanna see something cool?" He asked

"...Sure?"

She would have preferred a 'wanna go home', and he was acting a little unhinged, but she wasn't about to let a real person disappear into the horizon. She would probably be a little unhinged after three years in this place, too. Wait, three years? It began to sink in that she might not be getting home. But no, she would deal with that later. She had a real person here, and she wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste.

"C'mon, lets go to the Pokemon Center at the bottom of the hill." He said. "They won't like where we're going if they're injured."

They? They who? Her pokemon? They had feelings? That certainly wasn't something she'd considered up until that point. Her Pokemon has seemed as mindless as everything else, so she'd basically ignored them.

He flew to the mountain base on an orangey-red dragon with it's tail on fire, and she followed on her totem bird. One quick healing later, and they were back outside, him with his dragon next to him, and her with her giant anteater.

"Right, so this won't work on your xatu, it's too small, so get up behind me on my charizard." He said

"My what-now?" She asked, not moving.

"Your xatu, the Pokemon you flew on." He explained

Oh, her totem bird.

"C'mon." He encouraged her, before turning around and climbing up on his charizard's back, just behind the wings.

"B-but how?" She asked.

The closest she'd ever managed to get to her Pokemon was arm's length. If she got closer than that, it moved out the way.

"Come here to his side," he said, "and I'll pull you up. It's pretty hard to do on your own until you get used to it."

He pulled her up and, as soon as her feet left the ground, she was hit with a wave of dizziness and she knew she would have fallen over if it wasn't for his support. By the time most of the dizziness had subsided, he had pulled her up so that she was lying over his charizard's back behind him, much like a dead animal over a horse's back. With a little bit of help, she managed to sit astride it, with one arm awkwardly holding onto his shoulder.

"You might want to hang on harder than that." He chuckled. "Use fly!"

Well. She'd never used fly like that before.

His charizard leapt into the air and with powerfully beating wings, rose until they were level with the top of Mt. Silver, then started gliding in large circles to maintain their altitude.

"So, where are we going?" She asked quietly with her arms wrapped tightly around his middle.

Despite how high up they were, there still wasn't any wind to muffle their voices.

"I figured this out once I'd been here a few months and was getting desperate." He said instead of answering her question. "Forward!"

His charizard kept just kept circling around and around.

"This sometimes takes a couple tries." He said sheepishly. "There's only a few things that they can understand in here."

"You mean we're going out there?"

She'd tried getting past the rocks and trees that marked the boundaries a few times, but it was like running into an invisible wall.

"Yep. 'K dude, go forward!" He tried again, unsuccessfully.

He leaned forward and wrapped one arm around his charizard's neck.

"Lie forward and hold on tightly." He ordered her. "If your legs are long enough, slide them under his back legs and jam them there as best you can."

"Um, alright."

She found it extremely awkward to be this close to a boy she'd only just met, even without taking the whole game situation into account. But she had the suspicion that they were just about to do something stupidly dangerous, and so had no intention of doing anything except what he told her.

She was right.

Once he deemed her secure enough, and they had circled around until they were close to the boundary far below them, he extended one arm, took a hold of the end of a slender finger in his charizard's outside wing, and hauled the wing closed.

She shrieked as they started to fall, and just about crushed his waist when they started to tip sideways. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in his back, not wanting to watch as they fell ever closer to the sharp rocks below them.

She didn't see when they passed the boundary, but her whole body vibrated as the charizard roared as it regained its consciousness. It wasn't until their flight flattened out and she no longer felt like they were falling that she finally risked opening her eyes.

The first thing she saw was the weave of the fabric of the guy's shirt, unpixelated and flapping in the strong wind, which was whistling in her ears, as it should. Her own arms were once again sparsely scattered with freckles, and she could even see her fine arm hairs. The charizard's hide was surprisingly smooth, and darker on its back than on its sides. She sat up slightly, and got a face full of shaggy, black hair, so sat up more, and saw the charizard with its head slightly to the side, doing its best to examine her while flying in a straight line.

She dared a look below her, and gasped, the noise instantly carried away by the wind. There were rivers, forests, and lakes, all laid out in an expansive panorama. Nothing was square, or regular. There were trees on top of hills, and she could see that they had branches in different places and were different heights. A large lake to their right reflected an exact mirror image of the the trees surrounding it. Something large and blue in it flicked its tail and ripples rushed over the water surface, and the reflected trees wavered and broke up.

There wasn't a pixel in sight and it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.


End file.
